1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing agent service method and system for receiving a request for printing from a user and performing printing by proxy, and more particularly, to a printing agent service method and system, which a user accesses from an outside destination and printing is performed by proxy.
2. Description of the Related Art
Mobile equipment is being made smaller and multi-functional in line with the widespread use of the Internet. Ordinarily, since mobile equipment, such as cellular telephones and portable terminals (personal computers), are required to be compact and lightweight, output is limited to displays, and there are no printing functions.
However, there are cases in which one is using these mobile equipment, and wants to produce a printout. For example, there are cases in which one is using a cellular telephone and browsing the WWW (World Wide Web), and upon finding a restaurant or some other eating and drinking establishment or recreational facility, wants to print that information (for example, the distance to a destination, a map and the like) using a printer. There are also cases in which one is at an outside destination, and wants to print out a file from a portable terminal or the company's server to provide to a client. In addition, there are case in which the display of a cellular telephone or mobile personal computer is small and hard to read, and one wants a printout, and other cases in which one is surfing the web at home and wants to output information, but wants to perform this output via a color printer or highspeed printer that is not at home.
A printing agent system, which uses a network, has been proposed to deal with requirements like this (for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 11-146118). In this proposed printing agent system, one accesses a service provider via a network from a portable terminal, and transmits print data to a server.
The server displays on the portable terminal a list of stores (for example, convenience stores) capable of acting as printing agents. The user goes to one of the stores listed, and when he inputs a password into a printer at that store, the above-mentioned print data is transmitted from the server to the printer, and the printer prints it out.
In this agent service system, a printout can be obtained by going to a printing agent store at an outside location.
However, in a conventional printing agent system, a user can query the server as to the location of a printing agent store, but a problem arises in that the user himself must find the nearest printing agent store from his outside location. It is not easy to find the nearest printing agent store in a shopping district or a place with which one is not familiar. This was one factor that retarded the convenience of the printing agent service.